“Evolution of Knowledge Sharing of Education …
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5 Case Study I: Virtual Academy of Sustainability
The VAS was founded in 2011 with the aim to reach as many students as possible with
basic knowledge about ESD. Based on experiences from the production of online
courses and electronic exams at the University of Bremen, the Chair of Sustainable
Management in cooperation with the Centre for Multimedia in Teaching developed
the concept for an offer of online courses for all German universities.
5.1 Conceptual Approach of the Project
In order to offer creditable courses throughout Germany, which are used by universities and attractive for students, the VAS works in three main areas: (a) online courses,
(b) learning platform and (c) electronic assessment (Fig. 1).
(a) In order to reach as many students with ESD as possible, the VAS produces and
publishes online courses that are freely available and can be used by everyone.
To ensure that students do not only voluntarily take these courses as an additional
service and that universities also include them in their programmes, all course
content is produced by university teachers. All university lecturers are experts in
a specific sustainability topic. The production of a range of courses with varying
experts is intended to create a wide range of sustainability topics. Students
cannot only get credit for the courses they have taken for their own studies, but
they can also take a course on a specific topic according to their own interests.
Furthermore, the contents of all courses are designed for a basic level. On the one
Fig. 1 Structure of the VAS. Own illustration
371
5 Case Study I: Virtual Academy of Sustainability
The VAS was founded in 2011 with the aim to reach as many students as possible with
basic knowledge about ESD. Based on experiences from the production of online
courses and electronic exams at the University of Bremen, the Chair of Sustainable
Management in cooperation with the Centre for Multimedia in Teaching developed
the concept for an offer of online courses for all German universities.
5.1 Conceptual Approach of the Project
In order to offer creditable courses throughout Germany, which are used by universities and attractive for students, the VAS works in three main areas: (a) online courses,
(b) learning platform and (c) electronic assessment (Fig. 1).
(a) In order to reach as many students with ESD as possible, the VAS produces and
publishes online courses that are freely available and can be used by everyone.
To ensure that students do not only voluntarily take these courses as an additional
service and that universities also include them in their programmes, all course
content is produced by university teachers. All university lecturers are experts in
a specific sustainability topic. The production of a range of courses with varying
experts is intended to create a wide range of sustainability topics. Students
cannot only get credit for the courses they have taken for their own studies, but
they can also take a course on a specific topic according to their own interests.
Furthermore, the contents of all courses are designed for a basic level. On the one
Fig. 1 Structure of the VAS. Own illustration